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What's the value of vendor certification to me and my clients?

Learn why vendor certification yields both tangible and intangible benefits.

For the VAR it's going to typically be better access to resources, whether those are sales resources or technical resources. There are typically financial benefits as well -- maybe a bigger margin if you reach a certain level of certification. You may get access to [vendor loan] funds if you reach a certain level of certification.

What I always look at as most important is [whether] a given certification gives me better access to the resources we need to support our clients. If it doesn't, it's not very attractive. My fundamental concern running my business is [that] we need to support the technologies we recommend, and if we run into issues that exceed our expertise or we're feeling like we're just not being as efficient as we could [be] in addressing the issue, we need to be able to get back to the vendor at the appropriate level, without going through the very basic Q&A when you call in to a tier-1 help desk. We need to get right to the [support] level we need access to to solve the customer's problem.

To the end user, to the VAR's customers, the benefit is very much the same -- most specifically, on the support side. If the VAR has a more direct line to the vendor to support the customer, that works in the customer's favor. And that provides for a better, more efficient working relationship. The VAR's able to be more efficient, [and] therefore the client gets better service.

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